Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate

In Nostra Aetate 1.1, the Church claims to examine “more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions” (Paul VI. Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council. The citations from Nostra Aetate are taken from the official Vatican publication in English or Latin. I use the numeration of articles of the official publication and use decimal numbers for the paragraphs of an article). Rahner insists that until then the Church reflected only on the relationship to individual persons of other religions and not on the relationship to another religion as such (Rahner, Karl, and Herbert Vorgrimler. 1966. Kleines Konzilskompendium. Freiburg: Herder. 350). This new reflection stems from the fact that “in our time … mankind is being drawn closer together”. The motive for this reflection on the relationship to other religions as such is the standpoint that it is the Church’s task to promote “unity and love among men, indeed among nations” and what brings them together to be a mutually cooperating community.

The text of Nostra Aetate that is published on the Vatican’s official website does not gender, declines to comment on inclusive language and refuses to take any step against gender discrimination. All official texts of the Second Vatican Council speak exclusively of “men”. Why is it so difficult to speak of women and men? Moreover, why is it not possible in 2018 for the Vatican to speak inclusively of women, men and queer?

Rahner interprets the self-obligation of the Church to promote unity and love among women, men and queer as the commitment to enter a patient and positive coexistence with the other religions and to take up a dialogue with them; under these conditions the Church may follow its missionary task (ibid.).

Nostra Aetate 1.2 prepares the theological basis for this new and respectful relationship to the other religions that is Go’d’s will for universal salvation (ibid.). Nostra Aetate 1.2 starts with the claim that all people constitute one community or society and share one origin, “for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth”. The Declaration refers to the biblical argument in Acts 17:26, that Go’d made live the humans all over the world. This assertion of Go’d’s sovereign creating agency we read in Paul’s speech on the Areopagus in Athens. Paul speaks of humanity originating from one single man. The Declaration no longer defends monogenism, namely the belief that all humans are descended from Adam, as opposed to evolution theory. Saint Paul helps the Declaration speak of its relation to all other religions.

Nostra Aetate 1.2 uses four biblical references (Wisdom 8:1; Acts 14:17; Romans 2:6-7; 1 Timothy 2:4) to legitimate the claim of Go’d’s providence (Wisdom 8:1 speaks and eulogizes “wisdom”), manifestations of goodness like life-sustaining food and hearts filled with gladness (Acts 14:17), and saving designs (Romans 2:6-7) that extend to all humankind (1 Timothy 2:4). Apocalypse 21:23f. remains valid “until that time when the elect will be united in the Holy City,” which is illuminated by the glory of Go’d, where all peoples “will walk in His light,” that is the claim that all history will end in Go’d. Yes, now it is legitimate to say with Rahner that Nostra Aetate 1.2 speaks of the universal history of salvation (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 350).

I quote Nostra Aetate 1.3 according to the official Vatican translation, but I always interprete the Latin homines as “women, men and queer.” Women, men and queer “expect from the various religions answers to the unsolved riddles of the human condition, which today, even as in former times, deeply stir the hearts of women, men and queer “Whence suffering and what purpose does it serve? What is the” ‘way’ “to true happiness? What are death, judgment and retribution after death? What, finally, is that ultimate inexpressible mystery which encompasses our existence: whence do we come and where are we going?” Certainly, there are women, men and queer who ask the above questions. It is also important to note that the above questions are not asked by everyone. Some women, men and queer do not ask the above questions. In all times, religious questions had interested but a few. When Paul at the Areopagus started talking about the resurrection of the dead, most of the listening Greeks walked away (Acts 17:32), “but there were some who attached themselves to him and became believers, among them Dionysos the Aeropagite and a woman called Damaris, and others besides” (The New Jerusalem Bible 1999. Acts 17:33).

Rahner dryly comments on Nostra Aetate 1.3 from the point of view of the study of religion: the fact that women, men and queer try to cope with existential questions concerning their lives is the reason why religions still exist in our modern world (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 350). It is important that the Catholic Church confirms that people from “the various religions” expect their religion to answer “the unsolved riddles of the human condition”. This affirmation gives validity to the Declaration’s claim to consider “above all … what women, men and queer have in common.

In Nostra Aetate 2.1 the religious experiences and views of the peoples are recognized and described as “a certain perception of that hidden power, which hovers over the course of things and over the events of human history; at times some indeed have come to the recognition of a Supreme Being, or even of a Father”.

Nostra Aetate 2.2 starts to assess the progress of cultures by looking at the development of language. The language pictures on religion, the religious concepts, become more and more precise as the language becomes more and more sophisticated. The expert commission working on the recognition of Hinduism included Hinduists (Siebenrock, Roman A. 2005. “Theologischer Kommentar zur Erklärung über die Haltung der Kirche zu den nichtchristlichen Religionen Nostra aetate.” In Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil. Vol 3, ed. by Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, 591–693. 656. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder). “Thus, in Hinduism men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an inexhaustible abundance of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. “They seek freedom (Latin: liberationem) from the anguish of our human condition either through ascetic practices or profound meditation or a flight (Latin: refugium) to God in confidence and love.” While the expression “yoga” is not used, it is described in the above sentences (ibid.). The experts then wrote on Buddhism: “Again, Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which” women, men and queer (Latin: homines), “in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination”. At the request of African bishops, animism and natural religions were recognized, too (ibid.): “Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing ways, comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites.”

Why does the Declaration not mention Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism among other Asian religions?

Since Nostra Aetate 2.3 exhorts the Christian faithful to dialogue and collaborate “with the followers of other religions” we may include all religions in this dialogue and collaboration. Nevertheless, Nostra Aetate 2.2 limits “sincere reverence” to Hinduism and Buddhism:

“The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all” women, men and queer (Latin: homines). The Declaration at this point does not give the important precision that the terms “light” and “truth” for the Christians are predicates given to Jesus. John 1:9 presents Jesus as the Word that was the light. In Nostra Aetate 3.1 the Council uses a reference to a letter from Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century that quotes John 1:9. The Hindu and Buddhist faithful would not accept that they are already a little bit enlightened by Jesus Christ. The Second Vatican Council does not recognize being disrespectful of the faithful of Hinduism and Buddhism at this point.

Rahner recalls that the Second Vatican Council extended the recognition of what is true and holy in other religions to what is true and holy in all women, men and queer on this earth (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 350). Someone who did not hear the message of Christianity, and even an atheist, may remain without guilt and by Go’d’s grace believe in the faith of salvation and love and be saved (ibid. 351). Rahner wants to have cited here the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 1 that proclaims that Jesus Christ is the light of the peoples. Rahner refers to the document on the Missions, Ad gentes 7, that proclaims Go’d’s universal will for salvation, and Gaudium et Spes 22 that proclaims faith and salvation in Jesus Christ not only for Christians, but “for all homines of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.” The text of Gaudium et Spes at this point refers to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 16 (Paul VI 1965c).

What about the following sentences in Nostra Aetate 2.2? “Indeed, she” – that is the Catholic Church – “proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14, 6), in whom” women, men and queer (homines) “may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).” The proclamation that in Jesus Christ the women, men and queer of this world may find the fullness of religious life does not discriminate other religions, or women, men and queer with no religious beliefs at all, if the following condition is realized: The fullness of religious life, that is according to Nostra Aetate 2.2 the reconciliation of Go’d with all women, men and queer, is possible for non-Christians, for all women, men and queer on this earth. In this context the assertion of Go’d’s universal will for salvation or reconciliation is very important. As a Christian champion of the equality of all women, men and queer in matters of faith, Rahner realizes his contribution to the unity and love of all, to the equal dignity, freedom and rights of all women, men and queer.

The term “reconciled” must be described and the term “salvation.” Both terms occur twice in the Declaration. Clarifying the concept and being able to show what I mean when I as a Christian speak of “reconciliation” is important because 2 Corinthians 18 says in its second half: “God gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” Go’d entrusted us with the mission and the message (dikaionia) of reconciliation. In this context it is helpful to cite with the Declaration not only the first half of 2 Corinthians 5:19, but to also refer to the whole verse as the Gospel of hope for everyone on this earth. “I mean, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone’s faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (The New Jerusalem Bible 1999). Reconciliation has to do with effectively doing away with the faults of women, men and queer against each other. These are nice worlds, where are the deeds that follow the words?

What the Catholic Church said in the Declaration about the Catholic Church as a whole, Nostra Aetate 2.3 demands of the individual Christian. Christians are exhorted to “…dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men” – and I may add: among these women, men and queer.

The Declaration was not ready to assess the consequences for the life of the Church herself that the dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions might inspire. Liturgical reform was undoubtedly on the agenda of the Second Vatican Council. There was some reform, but the Roman Catholic Church was not willed to support individual spirituality. In the 50 years that have passed since the closing of the Second Vatican Council a veritable movement for Asian spiritual practices developed in the West. Many Catholic and Christian women, men and queer as well as women, men and queer of no religious confession have started to practice yoga, Zen and other forms of meditation. Women, men and queer created space for their moments of silence and prayers in order to resource their lives with spiritual energy, calm and inner peace. The institutions of the Roman Catholic Church meet these individual spiritual practices with suspicion. In some cases, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explicitly warned against these practices as not being Christian forms of prayer. On October 15, 1989, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published a document warning against uncritical harmonization of Christian meditations with Eastern techniques of Zen, transcendental meditation and yoga that can degenerate to a cult of the body (Ratzinger, Joseph. 1989. “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on some Aspects of Christian Meditation.” The Holy See. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19891015_meditazione-cristiana_en.html).

In the Western liberal democracies, women, men and queer in freedom and with dignity follow their hearts and reject doctrinal paternalism. Authentic spiritual experience cannot be ordered by human authority. An authentic spiritual master accompanies the spiritual novice with respect, patience and empathy. The speech-acts of the novice with the master are not about abstract concepts of thinking, but about the personal history and the ways of experience. Women, men and queer have confidence in the way of their spiritual experiences and are not fearful of the encounter with oneself in meditation. Their longing for spiritual calm and well-being, the attraction of simplicity and the need to find oneself, to feel one’s breath and get empowered by one’s sources of within, leads and guides women, men and queer on their search for integrity. The experiences of fullness and thankfulness for life follow the experience of one’s integrity and dignity.

I cite Nostra Aetate 3.1, including the reference to the letter by Gregory VII:

“The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth (see St. Gregory VII, Letter III, 21 to Anzir (Al-Nacir), King of Mauretania: PL 148, col. 450 ff.), who has spoken to men” (Latin: homines, that is women, men and queer). “They take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times, they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those” (Latin: homines, that is women, men and queer) “who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”

Rahner rightly observes that Nostra Aetate 3.1 speaks of Islam with deep respect. He points at the strategy of the Council to appease the protests of the Arabs concerning a positive statement on Israel by first praising the Muslims (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 351). Rahner documents that already Lumen Gentium 16 acknowledged the inclusion of the Muslims in Go’d’s universal salvation (ibid.). The Council’s reference to the letter of Gregory VII is interesting. Gregory VII cites John 1:9a: “The Word was the real light that gives light to everyone;” and thereby expresses his acknowledgment of God’s plan for the salvation of all women, men and queer. The historians are not sure, if Gregory’s statement reflects a position of strength or weakness in relation to a mighty Mauretanian king, a noble prince or simply a Muslim of Mauretania. What was Gregory’s motivation for this manifestation of respect? The Second Vatican Council did not intend to make a political statement on Arabs and Israel, but wanted a declaration on the relationship of the Church to the Muslims “to promote … peace and freedom” (Nostra Aetate 3.2). In the same letter by Gregory VII we find verse 1 Timothy 2:4 that is also cited in Lumen Gentium 16 claiming Go’d’s universal will of salvation: “God our Savior wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth.”

Nostra Aetate 3.1 does not mention Muhammad as the final messenger of Go’d according to the first pillar of the Muslim faith. Faith in Go’d, the One, is confirmed by the Declaration, and also prayer, almsgiving, and fasting are evoked. There is no word on the fifth pillar, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Nostra Aetate 3.2 encourages dialogue between Christians and Muslims in order to come to know each other. For my part, I would like to say of myself that I wish to have the grace to tawafani musliman (to die as a faithful of Go’d).

Nostra Aetate 3.2: “Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.”

I am asking concerning family values: Would the Catholic Church and the Muslims accept Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that claim the following economic, social, and cultural rights for the family?

(1) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. (2) The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized (3) No marriage shall be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses (4) States parties to the present Covenant shall take appropriate steps to ensure equality of rights and responsibilities of spouses as to marriage, during marriage, and at its dissolution. In case of dissolution, provision shall be made for the necessary protection of any Children.

ICCPR Article 23 (1)

Nostra Aetate 4 is dedicated to the theme that gave rise to the whole Declaration in the first place: the relation between Jews and Christians (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 351). Rahner explicitly points out the merits of J. M. Oesterreicher in achieving and working out this Declaration (ibid.). Johannes Oesterreicher (1904-1993) was an Austrian-American Catholic theologian. He was a Jew, who converted in 1924 and in 1927 was ordained to the priesthood. When in 1939 Austria was annexed as part of Nazi Germany, he fled to the US and founded in New Jersey the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies. He was a consultor at the Secretariat for Christian Unity that prepared the text of Nostra Aetate for the Council (Quisinsky, Michael. 2013. “Oesterreicher”. In Personenlexikon zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, edited by Michael Quisinsky and Peter Walter, 202–203. 202. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder). Oesterreicher, like Rahner, served as an expert for Vienna’s Cardinal König at the Council, and I suppose it was Oesterreicher, who kept Rahner informed on the progress of the Declaration and therefore earned Rahner’s special appreciation.

Rahner is frank about Christian antisemitism but does not use the term Shoah (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 351): In the past, Christians were guilty of many sins, bloody and moral persecution of Jews and presently gross distortions of Jewish teachings as well as false accusations – like, for example, that ritual murders of Christian children were performed -, are still circulating and need to be stopped (ibid.). There was harsh resistance to John XXIII’s cleansing of the Catholic Church’s liturgy, catechesis and preaching on antisemitism (ibid.). Rahner laments that Catholic theology principally suffered the lack of a theology of Israel (ibid.). There is Paul’s theology of Israel that never really became accepted and adopted by the Church’s traditional Ecclesiology (Siebenrock 2005, 662). Nostra Aetate is the first document of the Catholic Church that recognizes Paul’s theology of Israel (ibid.). This theology of Israel is the soul of the whole Declaration.

Nostra Aetate 4.1: “As the sacred synod searches into the mystery of the Church, it remembers the bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock.”

Does this sentence speak of the actual ties, the actual relations between Christians and the Jews? Cardinal Liénart said in the debate that the Jews in the actual and contemporary order of salvation, or history of salvation, are to be considered with their proper locus (Siebenrock 2005, 661). The locus, the place of Christian-Jewish relations is the present. Consequently, archbishop Seper claimed that the text of the Declaration must start with contemporary Jewry and that the Catholic Church must accept and recognize contemporary Jewry as a co-heir of salvation. Oesterreicher speaks of a community of heirs on this point and also bishop Elchinger does not remain silent on this point in the aula of the Council (ibid.). Reading all these commentaries, I wonder that there is not the slightest mention of the Shoah.

I present the first sentence of Nostra Aetate 4.2: “Thus the Church acknowledges that, according to God’s saving design” (Latin: “mysterium Dei salutare”), “the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets.”

Rahner cannot believe that this last version of the text eliminated “the acknowledgment with a thankful heart” for the People of Israel (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 352). The final text of the Declaration expresses no thankfulness for the pilgrimage of faith of the patriarchs that truly prefigures the Church (ibid.).

I quote here the second sentence of Nostra Aetate 4.2: “She professes that all who believe in Christ – Abraham’s sons according to faith (Galatians 3:7) – are included in the same Patriarch’s call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen people’s exodus from the land of bondage.”

I would love to cite at least Galatians 3:6-9. Especially Galatians 3:8c is the precious reminder that the root or stem of Israel carries the branches, boughs, and twigs of Christianity and not vice versa.

Finally, I cite the last three sentences of Nostra Aetate 4.2 and give thanks to Go’d for Paul’s theology of Israel that by this Declaration of the Council becomes normative for the Catholic Church.

“The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles (Romans 11:17-24). Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself (Ephesians 2:14-16).”

Rahner reports Nostra Aetate 4.3: The Council assesses with the apostle Paul everything that in the Church is Jewish and stems from the Jews, assessing that the Apostles and last but not least Jesus was a Jew (ibid.). Rahner comments that the Council insists with Paul that the Jews are still loved by God (ibid.). God’s gifts of grace and his vocation and calling are irrevocable and indefinite (ibid.).

Nostra Aetate 4.4:

“As Holy Scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation (Luke 19:44), nor did the Jews in large number accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spreading (Romans 11:28). Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues – such is the witness of the Apostle (Romans 11:28-29; Lumen Gentium 57). In company with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and ‘serve him shoulder to shoulder (Zephaniah 3:9)’. (Isaiah 66:23; Psalm 65:4; Romans 11:11-32).”

Rahner encourages future Catholic theologians to take this as serious inspiration for a theology of God’s sovereign will for salvation, to take up from the text the elements concerning a history of salvation and a Christian eschatology (ibid.). If Jesus speaks in Luke 19:44 of the destruction of Jerusalem by her enemies, we have to say that Jesus does not say that the Christians are allowed to persecute the Jews of all times. The editing history of the Declaration shows the Council’s difficulties in overcoming the Catholic doctrine of holding the Jews collectively guilty for the death of Jesus. When Paul in Romans 1:28 refers to the “part of Israel”, he is speaking about Romans 11:25 and not about all of Israel of all times. I am very sensitive about these still ambiguous sentences in the Declaration. There is no collective guilt of the Jews for the death of Jesus, and if Nostra Aetate 4.6 is clear about this fact why not word Nostra Aetate 4.3 accordingly and without any possibility for misunderstanding? A clear rejection of ambiguous wording would give more credibility to the Declaration’s assertion that despite the rejection of Jesus in – and not by all of – Israel, the Jews must never be judged as having fallen into damnation.

“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great” (Nostra Aetate 4.5), the Declaration recommends mutual understanding and respect. Dialogue and understanding need biblical and theological studies (ibid.). It is true that appreciation is possible if Christians start reading the Hebrew Bible and recognize the Greek New Testament as an interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. In reality, reading the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament must provide the foundation for Christian theology. In 2018 I do not see that many Catholic professors of dogmatic or pastoral theology cultivate the study of Hebrew or Greek. The Catholic exegetes of the Old and the New Testament are still very isolated because of the ignorance of Catholic theologians with regard to Hebrew and Greek. Dialogue between exegetes and theologians is very important and still not systematically realized in the Catholic contemporary academy.

Nostra Aetate 4.6: “True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ (John 19:6); still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new People of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.”

The sentence “The Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ” still represents ambiguous language and uses an interpretation of John 19:6 that again hints at the collectivity of Jews and therefore at their collective guilt. Rahner uses the words of Cardinal Franz König for the historic fact that “a small group of Jews, one Roman and a handful of Syrian soldiers of the 10th Cohort stationed in Palestine” were responsible for the death of Jesus (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 352). Rahner clarifies again that Jesus Christ died on the cross because of the sins of the world, that is also for our own sins. From Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection follows the forgiveness of sin and not a collective guilt of the Jews.

Nostra Aetate 4.7: “Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of antisemitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.”

The Church rejects all forms of persecution, hatred of anyone and antisemitism. There is not one word in the Declaration on the Shoah. Nor do the German-language commentaries that I consulted contain one word about the Holocaust. This is regrettable. Where is the recognition of all the persecutions of the Jews and of the role Christians played in the Holocaust?

Rahner strives for the Church to exercise a stronger voice against Catholic antisemitism than the woring “the Church deplores” (ibid. 353). Indeed, Cardinal Bea’s team and Catholic observers at the Council (Velati, Mauro. 2001. “Il completamento dell’agenda conciliare.” In Concilio di transizione. Il quarto period e la conclusion del concilio (1965). Vol. 5 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 197–284. 231. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino) spoke of “the condemnation of Catholic antisemitism,” but the resistance of the bishops to this wording forced them to retreat. The official Vatican translation of Nostra Aetate 4.7 uses for the Latin deplorat the weak expression that the Church “decries” and not the Church “deplores”. The majority of the Council fathers feared that condemning antisemitism would politically provoke the Arab world (ibid. 223).

Nostra Aetate 4.8: “Besides, as the Church has always held and holds now, Christ underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation. It is, therefore, the burden of the Church’s preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God’s all-embracing love and as the fountain from which every grace flows.”

To dispel the last theological doubts on Christ’s death the Declaration makes clear that Jesus entered His passion in liberty and freedom, that he died for the sins of all women, men and queer so that all will be saved and that the cross may be accepted as a sign of God’s universal love (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 353).

Nostra Aetate 5.1:

“We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man’s relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says “they who do not love, do not know God (1 John 4:8)”.

Rahner does not comment on the indissoluble adjunction of the relation to Go’d and the relation to other women, men and queer. Well, the text does not speak of women and queer, but simply speaks of the relation (Latin: habitude) of man (Latin: homines) to Go’d and of man to brother men. The terms gender and gendering were not on the mind map of the Council fathers, and in 2023 the official Vatican translation continues to refuse to use inclusive language.

Nostra Aetate 5.2:

“No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.”

Rahner speaks a bit enthusiastically and somewhat naively about Nostra Aetate 5.2, in the sense that he claims that there is talk about the fraternity of all humans, of the equality of human and human, of people and people (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 353).

There is no doubt that Nostra Aetate 5.2 clearly establishes the link between discrimination and dignity. Discrimination is against dignity and rights. Nostra Aetate 5 does not include the claim to equal dignity for women, men and queer as well as equal freedom, liberty and rights and duties for all women, men and queer. It is a fact that Nostra Aetate and the Second Vatican Council do not claim human rights as they are proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Nostra Aetate 5 is the document of the Second Vatican Council, where the Catholic Church comes close to fully recognizing human rights. The Second Vatican Council could have endorsed and included the UDHR, but it did not. In 2023 the concept of the equality of dignity is not yet realized by the Catholic Church, and I do not know how long it will take for equal dignity, freedom, liberty and rights to be recognized and realized within the Catholic Church.

From my modest personal relationship with Rahner I am ready to assert that Rahner was a feminist, that he supported and fought for women’s rights. In 1960 Gerlinde Pissarek-Hudelist, the first woman to receive a doctorate in theology at the Theological Faculty in Innsbruck, was asked by Rahner to work as his assistant at the University of Innsbruck (Heizer, Martha. 1997. “Wenn meine Mutter Zeit hat, arbeitet sie. Herlinde Pissarek-Hudelist.” In Religionspädagoginnen des 20. Jahrhunderts, edited by Annebelle Pithan, 375–390. 378. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Rupprecht). In 1989 Gerlinde Pissarek-Hudelist became the first dean of a Pontifical Theological Faculty in the world (ibid. 381). Gender theory was not on Rahner’s mind, and the expression queer was not yet current. Concerning Nostra Aetate 5.3, Rahner rightly observes that the Declaration reproves any discrimination of a human being, any act of violence against a human being with respect to race, color, social status or religion (Rahner, Vorgrimler 1966, 353). Rahner is right; the Declaration reproves discrimination on the basis of race, color, social status and religion. The text makes no mention of condemnation of discrimination with respect to gender.

Nostra Aetate 5.3: ”The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men (homines) or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to ‘maintain good fellowship among the nations’ (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men (homines) (Romans 12:18), so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:45).”

I want to point out that the Declaration clearly justifies reproving any discrimination with a reference to Jesus Christ. This time the Declaration does not refer to any verse in the New Testament, and I am convinced that the reference to Jesus Christ must be completed by a reference to the Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church could at least start ending discrimination within herself by complying with what the Apostle Paul proclaims in Galatians 3:26-29: “for all of you are the children of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus, since every one of you that has been baptized has been clothed in Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither male nor female – for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And simply by being Christ’s, you are that progeny of Abraham, the heirs named in the promise.”

A Jewish critique of Article 4 of Nostra Aetate 50 years after Vatican II.

How does a Jewish theologian comment on Nostra Aetate 50 years after its proclamation? Susanne Plietzsch is clear about the fact that the Catholic Church finally withdrew all theological arguments for the traditional legitimization of Catholic Anti-Semitism and with the Declaration Nostra Aetate established Judaism as a positive fact for Christian theology (Plietzsch, Susanne. 2017. „Nostra aetate 4: Aufbruch und Ausgleich“ In „…mit Klugheit und Liebe“, edited by Franz Gmainer-Pranzl, Astrid Ingruber and Markus Ladstätter, 253–265. 254. Linz: Wagner).

The new language to speak to the Jews after the Holocaust was introduced to the Catholic Church by Catholic theologians who were born Jewish and had converted. Their work for the Catholic-Jewish reconciliation was based on their personal experiences of discrimination and persecution as Jews (ibid. 256). The Catholic Church tried to react with solidarity but did not overcome all traditional theological perspectives of Christian superiority of the people of the New Covenant over “Abraham’s stock”. The Second Vatican Council was not able to use the term “Israel”. The Catholic Church gave in to the pressure of Arab countries who feared a recognition of the State of Israel by the Vatican (ibid. 257).

Plietzsch recognizes the new and high esteem for the Jews, she does not criticize lack of the terms Holocaust, Shoah and Israel in Nostra Aetate but diagnosis the declaration’s incapacity to recognize Israel’s autonomy and self-determination as a state of uncertainty. Israel gets recognition not as Israel but for “foreshadowing” the Christian religion (ibid. 258). The declaration further develops the ambiguity of recognizing Israel as the original “olive tree” and at the same time legitimating the goodness of the “roots” of that olive tree not by Go’d’s plan of salvation for Israel but by the inclusion of Israel into Go’d’s plan of salvation by Christ (ibid. 258–59).

Plietzsch is professor for Jewish culture and studies, and holds a doctorate in Protestant theology (ibid. 266). Therefore, she recognizes and reveals Nostra Aetate’s theological ambiguity analyzing the use of the references to the New Testament. For recognizing Israel as the olive tree as the possibility condition for the Gentile’s integration into Go’d’s plan of salvation Nostra Aetate 4.2 refers to Romans 11, 17-24. Paul compares Israel to an olive tree with “a holy root and holy branches” admonishing the Roman Greek Non-Jewish Christians “not to consider yourself superior to the other branches; and if you start feeling proud, think: it is not you that sustain the root, but the root that sustains you” (Romans 11, 16–18). Well, Paul’s reminder that it is the root that sustains the branches is not any more cited in Nostra Aetate 4. Nevertheless, there is recognition of the “good olive tree” in the declaration (ibid. 258).

Unfortunately, Nostra Aetate 4.2 uses also the letter to the Ephesians for a very different perspective on Israel. With Ephesians 2, 14 the declaration speaks of a necessary conciliation of Jews and Gentiles by Christ because Ephesians 2, 12 had claimed that the Jews “were excluded from membership of Israel”, they “were separate from Christ” (ibid.). Some decades after Paul’s death, the authors of the letter to the Ephesians have forgotten Paul’s warning not to feel superior to the Jews. In Ephesians there is no more talk of the priority of the root of the olive tree Israel and the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate does not set the record straight again (ibid. 259).

Recognizing contemporary Jewry in 1964 as co-heir of salvation was quite a challenge for Catholic theologians. Following this recognition, Christian theologians and scholars of Jewish studies started investigating what Jews and Christians had made of their common heredity that is the Torah of the Hebrew Bible or its Greek translation, the Septuagint. The Christians had developed the New Testament and rabbinic literature developed the Talmud. In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, Christians and Jews consider themselves not only as children of the same heredity. Scholars insist studying them as brothers and sisters that contemporarily developed their heredity in the first century CE. The authors of the New Testament were Jews, Jewish-Christians and the Rabbis were Jews. There was not only this proximity of sisters and brothers. Both, Jews and Christian-Jews had to develop the common heredity facing the same political, social, cultural and religious crisis that eventually destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and the territorial integrity of Israel. Christians and Jews developed two different answers to this crisis and thereby created their differences and enforced the otherness of the other. The destruction of the temple in 70 CE by the Roman general Titus led to a profound reformulation of Judaism (Michael W. Holmes. “Introduction”. In The Apostolic Fathers. Edited and translated by Michael W. Holmes. 3-19. 8. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academy): “The temple as a focal point for the faith was replaced by the synagogue, and scholarly rabbis like Johann ben Zakkai … and Akiba eventually replaced the priests as key leaders” (ibid.). In rabbinic Judaism study of Torah “replaced temple worship as a central focus” (ibid. 9). Only two strands and varieties of Judaism, the Pharisaic form and Christianity, survived. Taking this standpoint suggests “that rabbinic Judaism and Christianity are not parent and child (the traditional metaphor), but rather competing siblings” who influence each other (ibid.). Contemporary scholars of Jewish studies and New Testament exegesis alike therefore claim that the interactions of the Jews and Christian-Jews within the first century CE need consideration for the assessment of the proper tradition in the twenty-first century.